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With the Trump administration’s latest tariff increase on goods from China set to start Friday, the managers of ISM’s economic indexes spent part of their Wednesday webinar addressing concerns about the new levy’s effect on the economy, procurement and supply chains.

“I was hoping we wouldn’t still be talking about (tariffs), but alas we still are,” said Timothy Fiore, chair of the Institute for Supply Management’s Manufacturing Business Survey Committee, which puts out the Production Manufacturing Index (PMI) on the first of every month.

“If we’d had this conversation two weeks ago, I would have been more optimistic,” he said. “With the news this week, I don’t know that I have an opinion. But people who know and that I’ve talked to expect the tariffs to go into effect Friday.”

The U.S. has grounded all Boeing 737 MAX 8 and MAX 9 airliners, “effective immediately,” President Donald Trump said Wednesday, according to the Associated Press. And in a statement Wednesday, Chicago-based Boeing said it has confidence in the planes but recommended to the FAA “the temporary suspension of operations” of its global fleet of 737 MAX jets, which is 371 planes.

The intersection between procurement, accounts payable automation, payment technologies and card providers continued to converge today as Fleetcor announced it was acquiring Nvoicepay. The transaction marks yet another example of card-based payment providers getting closer to the world of buyer-driven procure-to-pay — and of course, the vendor corollary, accounts receivable — given the opportunity for supplier-driven payment acceleration.

Certify and Chrome River Technologies, two travel & expense providers who also offer invoice management software, will merge in a deal that’s valued at over $1 billion, a statement Tuesday said. It also realigns the market and makes the investor in the transaction an even bigger player in this sector, two Spend Matters' analysts said. Portland, Maine-based Certify and L.A.-based Chrome River initially will operate separately but will collaborate on investing in technology like artificial intelligence, machine learning, analytics and reporting, the announcement said.

Procure-to-pay provider Basware on Thursday announced that Tradeshift’s talks to buy it have been called off. In November, Finland-based Basware confirmed that it was in talks to be acquired, but it didn’t disclose the other company. Later, reports indicated that Tradeshift, a U.S.-based provider of solutions for supply chain payments and marketplaces, was seeking to buy Basware.

Kraft Heinz’s procurement division had an accounting problem that led to a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and a $25 million charge in the fourth quarter, the Wall Street Journal reports. The amount pales in comparison to the company’s other bad news Thursday — when it said it wrote down the value of its Kraft and Oscar Mayer brands by $15.4 billion dollars and it slashed dividends, sending the stock down 20% at one point, the Journal reports.

Business spend management vendor Coupa announced Monday morning that it has acquired Hiperos, a provider of third-party risk management. Coupa bought Hiperos from Opus. Alacra and all other Opus assets were not part of the transaction. The move lets Coupa, which is based in San Mateo, California, add more supplier compliance and risk intelligence insight into spend transactions and put a greater focus on reducing third-party risk. Spend Matters will have updates on the breaking news and an analysis later today.

Coupa is buying Aquiire, a provider of e-procurement software that brings notable capabilities in real-time search and catalog management, for an undisclosed sum, the company announced Monday. In purchasing Aquiire, Coupa gains not only additional modern front-end shopping capabilities (some might argue among the most advanced) but also a complement to the industry-leading catalog management technology it gained from acquiring Simeno in December 2017.

Coupa announced Tuesday it had acquired the technology assets of DCR Workforce, a Boca Raton, Florida-based vendor management system (VMS) provider, according to a press release. Coming on the heels of Labor Day, Coupa could not have picked a more appropriate holiday week to expand its services procurement and labor footprint. DCR’s software enables businesses to source and manage contingent workforce and services. The DCR solution will now be marketed as Coupa Contingent Workforce, part of Coupa’s broader platform.

Beeline, a provider of workforce management software, announced Thursday it has been acquired by New Mountain Capital, a New York City-based private equity firm, for an undisclosed amount, according to a press release. Founded in 1999, Beeline represents, alongside SAP Fieldglass, one of the “Big 2” vendor management system (VMS) providers. Its current incarnation is the result of a December 2016 merger with IQNavigator (IQN), which saw Beeline, part of staffing giant Adecco, acquired by GTCR, the owner of vendor-neutral IQN. Following the merger, Beeline and IQN were combined into a single company, renamed Beeline.

Payroll and human capital management provider ADP announced Monday it is acquiring WorkMarket, a cloud-based workforce management solution, for an undisclosed amount, the company said in a press release. The acquisition reflects a number of important human capital trends, including the increasing use of skilled non-employee labor to perform tasks or projects and, more recently, the growing recognition that businesses need to more deeply integrate their internal employee and external contract workforce, an approach also known as total talent management.

Coupa has acquired procure-to-pay (P2P) provider Simeno, extending the platform’s marketplace strategy to provide deeper and pre-integrated supplier connections and opening key markets to support continued expansion. Based in Basel, Switzerland, Simeno offers key capabilities in cross-catalog search and advanced catalog management. Large enterprises often use Simeno as a shopping front-end for systems such as SAP PM, SAP MM and Oracle iProcure to augment cross-catalog search capability.